The officials often explain that it is difficult to conduct reforms while Ukraine was at war.
President Petro Poroshenko has also left the option of introducing martial law through the country open, if the Minsk II ceasefire fails, which would basically give the government yet another excuse for delaying reforms under the cover of war. Poroshenko, who was elected as the reformer, had to become the commander-in-chief.
The Ukrainian governing political bloc was essentially formed after the revolution to build a liberal pro-Western society ruled by law. Yet, it is obvious that building a democratic state during an external aggression is largely an impossible task. There are very few modern countries in the world that faced a similar challenge.
Ukrainians often refer to the experience of Israelis who created their state under constant military attacks and external threats. However, Israel’s experience is hardly comparable to the challenges faced by Ukraine starting from the fact that the nuclear-armed Russian Federation with its 800,000 active military personnel and $78 billion military budget (as opposed to the Ukrainian 130,000 and $1.6 billion, respectively) bears no comparison with the capabilities of Palestinians or even Israel’s Arab neighbors. In addition, the Western powers’ support for the Israeli state has been much more substantial- both in financial and military terms – than their current support of Ukraine.
It is clear that the maxim “Ukraine should be saved before it is reformed” makes a lot of sense. Yet, the reality is such that Ukraine has no choice but to combine reforms with war efforts.
If before the Russian aggression, one could compare Ukraine to a person running along a platform and trying to jump on a train to a better future. Now, this person is being chased by a knife-wielding criminal. Jumping on a train becomes more critical than ever. Reforms in that sense are a shield that Ukraine has to build both to defend itself from an external threat and to avoid imploding from within.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine at a very unfortunate time. Ukraine found itself vulnerable and unstable with national financial resources depleted, corrupt elites, thriving oligarchic system and bloated government bureaucracy on all levels.
Understandably, Ukrainians were impatient and hopeful that, after the bloody EuroMaidan Revolution, the rules of the game would change and the state would finally start to resemble such Eastern and Central European democracies like Baltic states, Poland or Slovakia and Czech Republic, rather than feudal Eurasian autocracies.
Ukrainian society had the bitter experience of the Orange Revolution that failed to deliver on its promises of economic and political change in the country. This time around, after the EuroMaidan Revolution, people understood well that they cannot trust the leaders to deliver without the society being mobilized and itself pushing for change. The energy of that mobilization however eventually shifted toward war efforts more than reforms as Ukraine faced the danger of being invaded by a foreign authoritarian regime.
The war has moved the civil society’s agenda away from pressing reforms toward volunteering in and mobilizing resources for the war in Donbas.
More than half of the members of the volunteer battalions, such as Dnipro or Aidar, consist of the EuroMaidan activists. While there is no exact sociological data on this, a significant part of the activists who stood on the Maidan are now devoting their energy to providing the army with medical supplies and military ammunition.
They also help the wounded and the families of those killed in action and aid both the people relocated by war and those still remaining in the conflict’s zone. There is no exact estimate of the size of the volunteer movement in Ukraine.
Natalia Yakovleva, the manager of Help the Army civic campaign in Kharkiv, said that, in her city alone, there were 15,000 active volunteers. It is estimated that approximately one third of all adult Ukrainians have participated in the volunteer movement in at least some capacity, e.g. donated money to the Ukrainian army via text messages.
Ukrainian civil society realizes that the war cannot serve as an excuse for not reforming the country. Yet, they are much warier about undermining the legitimacy of the current officials via protests or strikes as this might be viewed as unpatriotic, if not outright treason, at a time of the looming danger of external aggression. Russia can also use internal chaos or a hypothetical Maidan III, or third revolutioni, against Ukraine’s interests.
As the EuroMaidan activist, historian and blogger Olexander Paliy put it, “being ruled by the worst Ukrainian government is still better than being ruled by the occupant Russian government.”
Not only did the war make citizens pay less attention to reforms, but it also thwarted some of the reforms. The lustration reform that started after the revolution as a result of the bottom-up-pressure from the active citizens aimed to clean the state apparatus from the corrupt officials belonging to the Yanukovych regime as well as those who were previously known to have collaborated with the KGB. The war has obstructed this process.
There are many documented cases when state officials acquired the legal status of the member of the anti-terrorist operation to avoid lustration. The anti-oligarch movement had also faltered as local oligarchs started to be perceived as Ukraine’s allies in the war with Russia. In the times of danger, such leaders as the tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, who became the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, started to appear as stalwarts guarding Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Kolomoisky managed to secure more influence over the Ukrainian politics than he enjoyed before the crisis happened. His past wrongdoings were quickly forgotten.
Nevertheless, Ukrainians understand well that, even though it is harder to reform during the war, the structural change remains the precondition for Ukraine’s ability to defend itself militarily and thus to survive as a state.
The Ukrainian military campaign is strongly affected by the government’s inefficiency and corruption. The fact that the leadership of Ukraine’s army has not undergone lustration and has not adopted any modern methods of military command has an extremely negative impact on the level of trust between the mobilized Ukrainians and their commanders. The population hesitates in their commitment to defend with arms for the ‘new Ukraine’ because the current government has not demonstrated clear enough that Ukraine indeed is on its way to become “new.”
The stronger Ukraine pushes on the reforms front, the stronger its military front will become. All Ukraine needs is time, financial aid and a team of dedicated and principled professions to overhaul the state apparatus and strike a powerful blow against corruption.
As former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, appointed head of the Advisory International Council of Reforms, stated on several occasions, a corrupt official inside Ukraine is the primary ally of Putin, whose aim is to destroy the nation. Building a successful European country is the only way for Ukraine to win long-term and prove to Russian people that the authoritarian kleptocratic model of a state that their leadership adheres to is not the only choice available.
Olena Tregub frequently contributes to the Kyiv Post and other publications.
